horizons82 wrote:It's been said before but there needs to be 3x the residential density onsite to really keep this thing working. They clearly wanted a plaza-esque space, so they took the shopping center and didn't bring the bowl that surrounds it.

I don't think it's that. It's that retail was developed too much in the northland was the main factor. Remember, ZR opened around the time Metro North Mall was collapsing. A lot of people just changed shopping centers with this. AMC had basically killed the small theatre at that mall and for the longest time the only theaters Liberty had was Independence Center or Metro North. So people headed west or south to shop and they developed based of this. From Liberty going to the movie and then Zona Rosa wasn't that tough.

Then the entire Shoal Creek area boomed. When ZR opened Wilshire Plaza was still in development too. The plat was entered in 1999 and sewers for Home Depot near Liberty was 2002. Then Liberty redeveloped the triangle

Then more recently/in parallel Tiffany Springs Marketplace opened. the second phase of ZR opened and I'm not sure they've filled all the spaces yet. The old kmart space in Liberty is open too as a new center and Shoal Creek has yet more retail than before, it's up to ~4 shopping centers/areas so that's six in a small area near I-35 when it was one good one and a couple smaller when ZR opened.

North Oak Village and Burlington opened to the south pulling people away from ZR that direction.

Further out Briarcliff Village opened in 2006, downtown retail started to recover pulling customers farther away. We're in this last category. In 2009-12 we went to ZR a lot more than we do now. I find it easier to go downtown sometimes.

We didn't hear about problems making payments until 2018 and it opened in 2004. It's all basic competition toughness. Rough math says the amount of retail has doubled and all of it likely took some ZR customers.

But yes, this is a good example how having the right area mix matters and setting up the TDD legally so something as simple as competition doesn't make the city owe money.

horizons82 wrote:It's been said before but there needs to be 3x the residential density onsite to really keep this thing working. They clearly wanted a plaza-esque space, so they took the shopping center and didn't bring the bowl that surrounds it.

I don't think it's that. It's that retail was developed too much in the northland was the main factor. Remember, ZR opened around the time Metro North Mall was collapsing. A lot of people just changed shopping centers with this. AMC had basically killed the small theatre at that mall and for the longest time the only theaters Liberty had was Independence Center or Metro North. So people headed west or south to shop and they developed based of this. From Liberty going to the movie and then Zona Rosa wasn't that tough.

Then more recently/in parallel Tiffany Springs Marketplace opened. the second phase of ZR opened and I'm not sure they've filled all the spaces yet. The old kmart space in Liberty is open too as a new center and Shoal Creek has yet more retail than before, it's up to ~4 shopping centers/areas so that's six in a small area near I-35 when it was one good one and a couple smaller when ZR opened.

We didn't hear about problems making payments until 2018 and it opened in 2004. It's all basic competition toughness. Rough math says the amount of retail has doubled and all of it likely took some ZR customers.

But yes, this is a good example how having the right area mix matters and setting up the TDD legally so something as simple as competition doesn't make the city owe money.

1. Metro North held its own until Gap and Disney finally jumped ship. Dillard's had originally planned a second store in the Ward's store (Dillard's owned the building until the city government repossessed it after declaring it blighted), which was one of around 11 Montgomery Ward stores that Dillard's purchased when the chain went under. Dillard's never went though with the plan because MD never followed though with several claims to renovate the mall. For example, they tried to add a food court by bringing in fixtures from another one of their dying properties and kicked out several healthy tenants to do so, but never opened the food court and it sat blocked off until the day the mall was demolished. Penney's had wanted to stay on as well as the store was the only store in the metro besides Oak Park that was large enough to carry the full line of services. Currently, Oak Park Mall is the only JCP store in the metro that is technically full service. The two Northland stores, Corbin Park, Lawrence (RIP) and KCK are all single story concept stores from a decade in the companies life when JCP tried to go head to head with Kohl's and left malls in favor of strip malls, lifestyle centers, and stand alone stores. Sadly, JCP seems to work better as a mall anchor as those formats have been the types of stores hit the hardest by their recent closing lists while Kohl's has been slowly shutting down their weaker mall stores, many of which are former Mervyn's stores. Jones renovating was done as a part of May's new ownership of the chain as Mercantile had let the divisions stores physical condition to decay while dumping millions into their Denver area stores despite the division headquarters for Joslins and Jones having been located in KC. You can find quite a few press releases about how the division offices (cited as having been in KCK) was so proud of all of these new fancy state of the art flagship stores they were opening in Denver while the KC stores like Metro North, Blue Ridge, Metcalf South, Bannister, and downtown were located in weak areas and were physically decaying. May came in and closed down Bannister (after chasing off Bass Pro when they decided to not leave the mall. That's a fact that can be researched.), consolidated Blue Ridge with Independence Center and renovated IC, renovated Metcalf South and Metro North, and took over the Montgomery Ward store at Oak Park Mall and the Jacobson's at Town Center Plaza. Topeka and Prairie Village were the only stores not touched by Mercantile, May, or Macy's and Topeka later closed when Macy's lease on the building was up. Macy's has surprisingly done nothing with the PV location despite having done a small refresh on the MN and MS stores after the conversion. MS smelled musty up until the end and MN does in places too, but that has slightly improved since the mall portion was sealed off. I assume it's even better now that the mall is gone.

May was very strategic with Jones after the acquisition and made some calculated decisions to try and eat up market share from Dillard's, which had heavily over saturated the metro by 2002 and had intended on building a new store at Corbin Park to replace the Ward Parkway, Bannister, and Mission Center stores before the project was delayed and resigned so many times that the recession killed pretty much everythign neat and special about the Prairie Fire and Corbin Park designs. Their plans gave them a store that served West JoCo/Olathe (OPM), North JoCo and WyCo (MS), The Plaza and East JoCo (PVS) South JoCo and the Ward Parkway Corridor (TCP), The Northland (MN), and the eastern Suburbs (IC) leaving only downtown and south KC with no stores. Macy's would later build the only ground up Macy's in the metro (in 30 or so years after they left in the 80's) in Lee's Summit, but May must have figured that Lee's Summit residents would patronize Bannister as the store was open until right before May merged with Federated.

If you dig though all 30 pages, you'll see a decent number of members mention how Zona Rosa opened with stores directly poached from Metro North as well as duplicate stores. Phase two later relied on poaching tenants from Boardwalk and Barrywoods along the same lines as what Town Center Plaza did to Metcalf South.

2. Simon has been sketchy with payments on Independence Center for quite a long time and we only just now heard about it after several years of rumors. I had honestly expected Simon to dump IC into Washington Prime as at the time when Simon made that move several WP malls such as West Ridge Mall in Topeka, Town Center at Aurora, Cottonwood Mall (ABQ), and Towne West in Wichita had similar anchors, and similar or better tenant rosters. IC also matches most of the malls that were spun off to WP in that Simon had never dumped a significant amount of money into renovating the entire shopping center.

3. I'm worried that the redevelopment and large number of shopping centers that have been proposed for the Metro North area will hurt Liberty retail and Zona Rosa retail. Having a Dillard's store that is relatively weak (Dillard's doesn't make a very good lifestyle center anchor. Macy's and Kohl's have seemingly had better luck with the concept) as an anchor hasn't helped. The store was downgraded a few years after opening to be more inline with the Independence Center store. The Northland can income wise support an upscale Dillard's, they just chose to shop elsewhere I guess. The Zona Rosa store is still a beautiful store (even though Dillard's abuses it and has let the carpet in the KC metro stores become stained, threadbare, and gross), and is still a higher category store than the locations in Topeka and Columbia and is leagues above the stores in places like Jefferson City, Manhattan, KS, and St. Joseph, but it's now below Oak Park Mall and the new revamped upscale store opening in Wichita. Dillard's has been hurting and shrinking stores, so I won't be surprised if the Oak Park Mall stores are consolidated or shrank soon as the Men's store is rarely busy above the first floor and the men's store hasn't received a full renovation since it opened as Stix, Baer, & Fuller. The women's store is also starting to look pretty rough and will hopefully be renovated soon since Dillard's is currently dumping millions to completely redoing the Towne East store in Wichita.

flyingember wrote:I don't think it's that. It's that retail was developed too much in the northland was the main factor. Remember, ZR opened around the time Metro North Mall was collapsing. A lot of people just changed shopping centers with this. AMC had basically killed the small theatre at that mall and for the longest time the only theaters Liberty had was Independence Center or Metro North. So people headed west or south to shop and they developed based of this. From Liberty going to the movie and then Zona Rosa wasn't that tough.

I think we're saying the same thing? Many suburban shopping centers are built on a population model that has failed time and again. It's a shell game that pretends you can expand commercial with an excessively low density. Sure, you don't need something a dense as the plaza bowl, but you'll need a whole hell of a lot more 3+ story multifamily or single family with smaller lot sizes to support a center, be it Metro North or ZR.

Agreed. And I think we’re seeing it. There’s some signs that multi family has picked up on the northland. The ones at Burlington Creek, 435 and 152 and in Shoal Creek are at a scale the northland hasn’t really seen before.

The other tiny change would be maximum setbacks. A required side setback of 12 feet between homes in more developments is about a ~10% increase in density with no other changes. Would be some nice neighborhoods if the style near the new Clayview became the norm and would be a lot denser

About Oak Park Mall Banana Republic and Body Shop closing according to Shawnee Mission Post story today and in it Nordstroms saying might relocate to Plaza or so on like maybe former Sears in OP or even former Kmarts in Johnson County,Village West,Corbin Park,135th street and Greenwood,Olathe Gateway phase 2,former Great Mall of Plains,Shawnee. Stores that could replace Oak Park Mall space stores not in area yet like Yonkers,Boston Store,Meijer,Shopko or so on and if Rack moves with it Fresh Thyme Market or Here Today or Dunham Sports or so on.

Also have other Commercial development at Twin Creeks,Edegewood Farms and so on. Also Falls at Crackernack Creek and so on in Independence have spaces and land to fill so does like Lees Summit Place,Plaza Speedway Shops,Belton Gateway,so on in Johnson County and so on.

mgsports wrote:About Oak Park Mall Banana Republic and Body Shop closing according to Shawnee Mission Post story today and in it Nordstroms saying might relocate to Plaza or so on like maybe former Sears in OP or even former Kmarts in Johnson County,Village West,Corbin Park,135th street and Greenwood,Olathe Gateway phase 2,former Great Mall of Plains,Shawnee. Stores that could replace Oak Park Mall space stores not in area yet like Yonkers,Boston Store,Meijer,Shopko or so on and if Rack moves with it Fresh Thyme Market or Here Today or Dunham Sports or so on.

Also have other Commercial development at Twin Creeks,Edegewood Farms and so on. Also Falls at Crackernack Creek and so on in Independence have spaces and land to fill so does like Lees Summit Place,Plaza Speedway Shops,Belton Gateway,so on in Johnson County and so on.

There is NO chance of Nordstrom relocating to the plaza. When Saks left, they cited their main reason for leaving as their store being too small with no room for expansion. The largest building on the Plaza is the old Sears store, and they're not going to boot the theater, Urban Outfitters, and the others out just for Nordstrom. The remaining portion of the old Halls store isn't large enough by far, the former Saks isn't large enough by far, and the old Macy's isn't large enough by far.

mgsports wrote:Their might be space near by for it like if they close the Loop for Development.

Are you trolling or is your spatial comprehension that bad?

grovester wrote:I actually heard the theaters would be closing.

Interesting. They could just downsize the theaters, by keeping the theaters in the building west of Jefferson. That wing already has a redundant concession and other necessary functions, all it would need is a new entry/ticketing space. This would allow them to remain, the plaza can relocate the other tenants elsewhere (god knows they've got the storefronts) and bring in Nordstroms to the eastern building.

Oak Park Commons former Sports Authority space because one of the buildings in a Shawnee Mission Post story today that want to turn into a Lifesystles Center. Others in it include Nordstroms Rack building it's in Orchard Corners,Broadway Plaza.

Really good example to prove to cities to stop approving more retail before the supporting residential is built.

How do you get people to move to the Northland when all the high paying jobs in KC are all within a couple miles of I-435 & I-35 in JoCo? I expect trying to attract retail was one way since they haven't been able to successfully add much in terms of higher paying jobs north of the river.

I've lived in the Northland for 17 years now, but work in Corporate Woods. I've been close to sucking it up and moving to JoCo.

mgsports wrote:Their might be space near by for it like if they close the Loop for Development.

Are you trolling or is your spatial comprehension that bad?

grovester wrote:I actually heard the theaters would be closing.

Interesting. They could just downsize the theaters, by keeping the theaters in the building west of Jefferson. That wing already has a redundant concession and other necessary functions, all it would need is a new entry/ticketing space. This would allow them to remain, the plaza can relocate the other tenants elsewhere (god knows they've got the storefronts) and bring in Nordstroms to the eastern building.

I doubt Nordstrom wants to go to the Plaza when all of the other prime tenants are leaving the Plaza for Leawood, or leaving the metro. Saks leaving was only the start and Halls leaving accelerated it.

Those are actually well-run and maintained. A shame that they have gotten a bad rep from the occasional problems with teens. It would be a big project to gut that building (again) to put something else in. I almost think they might try condos instead, or offices.

flyingember wrote:
I've lived in the Northland for 17 years now, but work in Corporate Woods. I've been close to sucking it up and moving to JoCo.

Took me almost 4 years, finally got a job downtown again.

Amazing how much my commute from daycare to work being <15 minutes makes my day better.

You can't pay me enough to work in Corporate Woods

I looked for three years and only one accounting job at my level popped up in downtown KC during that time. It was for a software company and I couldn't get them to talk to me since I didn't have accounting experience in the software world.

Otherwise every job that came up that was a good fit was situated along I-435 between I-35 and Roe.

I'm hoping to go into partial retirement in 4 to 5 years. Then I'll be able to take a much lower paying job at a smaller company in the Northland.

Really good example to prove to cities to stop approving more retail before the supporting residential is built.

How do you get people to move to the Northland when all the high paying jobs in KC are all within a couple miles of I-435 & I-35 in JoCo? I expect trying to attract retail was one way since they haven't been able to successfully add much in terms of higher paying jobs north of the river.

I've lived in the Northland for 17 years now, but work in Corporate Woods. I've been close to sucking it up and moving to JoCo.

Northland is closer to downtown than the other suburbam areas. I work downtown and the northland is the only suburban area I even considered when looking for a house.